Actually the Bill or Rights:

Ninth Ammendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Comment: The Ninth Amendment declares that just because certain rights are not mentioned in the Constitution does not mean that they do not exist. Courts may not infer from the silence of the Constitution that an unlisted right is unavailable to protect individuals from the government.

Tenth Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Comment: The Tenth Amendment restates a fundamental constitutional rule: If a particular power was not assigned to the federal government by the Constitution itself, then the states may exercise the power, unless the Constitution also prohibits the states from exercising it. The Tenth Amendment also states that people are free to act, without permission of the federal government, in areas outside the scope of the federal government's powers.


Moreover the Declaration of Independance from Britain sets a precedent. Here is a link to the text
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
Note the first section of the second paragraph.

Now the real question. Would the federal government fight back. On this point you almost assuredly can be assured they would, especially if it were California New York or one of the other large economic powerhouses that wanted to seceed. However the right is there.

Would the Eu have fought back or agreed in the EU Parliment had say Germany wanted to leave the union? Seeing as how it is the economic giant of the union and its leaving would almost assuredly mean the demise of the union itself I am willing to bet the European Parliment would not have voted to allow it, unless Germany gave the EU very very very favorable terms. THe issue isn't if the paper says a state has the right, the point is what will the federal entity at the top of the chain do once a state indicates it wants to leave.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

I would remind you that no state was coerced into joining the United States. All partitioned for admittance and all voted for the membership in the Union. The US likewaise voted to admit them. In this respect the US and EU, under the defunct constitution, would have been the same. I submit however no state in the US would be allowed to leave unless there were extraordinary reasons, and I can't imagine what they would be. The same would be true for the EU once it is consolidated. It will become increasingly true as time goes on.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Why do Americans have this habit of comparing the EU to the US? It doesn't make sense at all. The EU has evolved from EEC to EC to EU; it is built on different treaties or small steps at a time (i.e. Schumann declaration). Comparison is simply out of the question. The EU may be very close to consolidation with the enlargement and all plus states might not want to give away any more autonomy. For us living in Europe (i.e. having a clue at all), we know that the EU plays a huge role in our daily lives, but it is still "unity in diversity" meaning that the EU is not a nation-state, and it will never be. There isn't anything as a "European identity." There are German, French, Dutch, Finnish etc. identities, nation-states and so on.

The only identity that I feel we have as EU citizens, is the respect of human rights. Its actually the main reason that the U.S. doesn't qualify to become a member of the EU, even if they wanted to.

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Jesus was a communist!

Capital punishment would of course disqualify them, but still I think that the level of human rights, civil liberties and political rights is better in US than in any other new member state plus Greece, Spain and Portugal. Not to mention Romania and Bulgaria (to join 2009) as well as Turkey (candidate country).

I am sorry you seemed to be resp0nding to a series of posts between Walaroo and myself where the issue was a comparison on at least one level between the US and EU. I am very familiar with the EU. WHile it is not a super state at the moment, and won't be for the near or fairly far future, there are those prominent voices that call for that to be the ultimate end game. Frankly there are a number of simularities between the EU and US, more than you think. Moreover if the EU does form into a more cohesive political unit, I suggest the federal makeup of the SU is what is in store for you. A federal government with some powers and state governments with their own sets of powers. Our federal government was never supposed to be as strong as it is either, it just kind of evolved that way over the past 200 years.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Once again, this issue remains at the top of the list at upcoming meeting between Condi and Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Mackay....

The Liberals were against this and so are the Conservatives. Basically, Canada is united against this ill-thought out and unnecessary policy of the Bush (League) Administration. Anyone who is a friend of Canada and is for improved Canada-US relations will be against it as well.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2...531970-cp.html

Now your telling us how to think on a specific issue? What friend Bailey seems to forget is that laws within the boundaries of the country to his south are none of his concern. Canadians can and do pass any laws they wish within the boundaries of thier nation, some we agree with some we don't, and would be very upset if say Americans told Canadians any friend of America would push to make possesion of pot a felony or to repeal content legislation on the Canadian media, yet he seems to think it is perfectly alright for him to tell us what our laws should be. Now it isn't that he shouldn't have an opinion, but that opinion is in fact his and since he isn't an American it is interesting to hear what he thinks, but that is as far as it goes. One day he will come to realize this. For if he wants a say in our country's laws it is only right to give us a say in his. I don't think he would be in favor of that.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...rnational/home

There's already "anecdotal" evidence that cross-border traffic has been affected by the impending law, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president Nancy Hughes Anthony told the conference. She said bookings for travel and conferences are down.

Border communities have warned of billions of dollars in lost business if travellers decide that it's too costly or cumbersome to get passports or the new ID cards.

Only about 20 per cent of Americans and 37 per cent of Canadians have passports.

Clearly this is a bad idea whose time will hopefully never come.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ver...rules_onerous/

Keyes said Canada's desire for a go-slow approach to the new rules had won support from governors around New England and in other border states, and that several state legislatures were working on or had passed resolutions containing the same message.

He said he hoped Vermont lawmakers would pass a currently pending joint resolution that would put them on record as opposing the new rules.

One of the whereas clauses of the resolution says Vermont "greatly values the long-standing cultural, social, and economic ties it shares with Canada, especially the province of Quebec, and it is gravely concerned that (the new rules), as currently written, have the potential to affect negatively those ties."

Not recognizing the historical special relationship between Canada and the USA is a serious oversight on the part of the Bush League Administration

PASSPORT, PLEASE - What a stupid idea!
Will new U.S. border rules cut traffic at tourist-centric retail centers?
By Joel Groover

A new U.S. law that will force travelers in the western hemisphere to show hard-to-get forms of identification such as a passport before they can enter the U.S. has raised fears of economic harm to retail and tourism.

Critics say the law, which passed in December 2004 as part of a raft of recommendations by the 9/11 commission, threatens to stymie the flow of travel and commerce long enjoyed by citizens of the U.S. and some of its neighbors, millions of whom regularly cross the border with the mere flash of a driver’s license. Some of the restrictions are due to come into effect in December, others next year.

Not only does the law place new restrictions on foreign nationals, it also forces U.S. citizens to acquire a passport (or perhaps an alternate ID with similar safeguards) before they can re-enter the country after a trip to Canada, Mexico or such tourist havens as Bermuda.

Given the maxim that shopping and tourism go hand in hand, a travel slowdown caused by the restrictions could hurt shopping centers inside and outside the U.S. that depend on foreign visitors or routine cross-border traffic. “I’m surprised that this still hasn’t received much exposure,” said Gwen MacKenzie, CLS, senior vice president of retail investments at Irvine, Calif.-based Sperry Van Ness. “I don’t think people realize the impact it might have.”

The U.S. departments of Homeland Security and State plan to implement the law, called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, for all air and sea travel to or from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda by Dec. 31. The ID requirements would kick in for all land-border crossings exactly one year later.

The agencies have yet to announce which forms, if any, of secure ID beyond a passport will be acceptable, though the government says the Border Crossing Card, or “laser visa,” which Mexican citizens use to enter and exit the United States, should pass muster. Canadian and U.S. citizens now use driver’s licenses as their primary form of ID when crossing their mutual border, which, Alaska included, stretches some 5,500 miles.

By all accounts, federal officials have gotten an earful about the potential economic downside of the passport requirement. Outspoken critics include Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota.

“There is tremendous concern among New Yorkers that the initiative’s identification requirement would not only devastate the tourism and retail industry, but also greatly disrupt life on both sides of the American-Canadian border,” Clinton wrote in a letter to both agencies.

Surveys by the Canadian Tourism Commission show that just 34 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Canadians carry valid passports. (Canadian passports cost about C$75 [$64] and expire after five years.) The commission predicts that U.S. businesses will lose about $670 million over three years as trips by Canadians decrease by nearly 3.5 million. Canada’s tourism and other industries will take a C$3.3 billion hit during the same period, with 7.7 million fewer inbound trips by U.S. citizens.

The stats are no abstraction for Marjorie Ruddy, marketing manager for Canada One Factory Outlets, in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The 40-store mall, which draws 3 million visitors a year, is just minutes away from the famous waterfall and the U.S. border. Americans account for up to 30 percent of the mall’s traffic during the summer, Ruddy says.

“We were impacted as soon as the law hit the news, because a lot of the media forgot to say it didn’t take effect [for crossings by land] until 2007,” Ruddy said. “We actually had a few groups from the United States that we had booked to arrive here at the mall that called us and said, ‘We’re afraid. We think we’re going to cancel.’ ”

Similar ripple effects could reach major cities across Canada, says Peter Sharpe, president and CEO of Toronto-based Cadillac Fairview Corp., one of Canada’s largest owners of retail real estate. Americans are a mainstay of the Canadian convention business, he says. “Imagine the reluctance of a large meeting planner in Dallas faced with ensuring that all 400 people have passports so that they can get back into the United States, whether from Vancouver or Toronto,” Sharpe said. “The fallback position would be, ‘Let’s find something in the U.S.’ ”

Those dynamics also apply on the other side of the border. A family of four in Montréal, for example, might rethink a trip to Orlando, Fla., after mulling over the time, effort and expense of acquiring a set of passports at $75 each. (Although there is currently no U.S. government passport requirement for air travel between the U.S. and Canada, some airlines do require identification beyond a driver’s license. Many travelers use a passport for the purpose.)

“Close to 2 million Canadians a year go down to Florida at some point during the winter,” said Edward Sonshine, president and CEO of Toronto-based RioCan, Canada’s largest REIT. “It’s the No. 1 foreign destination for Canadians. It’s cold up here.”

The Canadian dollar is now worth about 86 cents, up from 73 cents a decade ago, and this makes Canadians far more likely to cross into the U.S. to shop, says Sonshine. The number of Canadian visits to the U.S. rose from 34.5 million in 2003 to 35.9 million the following year, according to the Binational Tourism Alliance, which represents 60 tourism and other business operators in the Buffalo-Niagara region. In 2004 Canadians spent $10.05 billion in the U.S. — $1.8 billion more than Americans spent in Canada the same year.

“Our malls in Buffalo do substantial business from Ontario,” said Howard Zemsky, a Buffalo businessman and alliance board member. “You don’t have to walk far to find an Ontario license plate.”

Indeed, the Syracuse, N.Y.-based Pyramid Cos., which owns three malls along the Canadian border in upstate New York, has seen a marked increase in Canadian shoppers over the past few years as a result of the favorable exchange rate, says Andra M. Case, corporate marketing manager. “Based on the feedback we’ve received from our merchants, Canadians account for approximately 12 to 15 percent of our annual customer base,” she said.

In the parking lots at Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minn., the license plates are as likely to be from Manitoba as Minneapolis. Canadians outnumber all other foreign tourists at the mall, says Doug Killian, Mall of America’s associate director of tourism and guest services.

“We’re only about a five-hour drive from the Canadian border,” he said. “Winnipeg in particular is an important market for us.”

The trouble is, the very things that have been making life easier for shoppers can do the same for terrorists, security experts say. Absent requirements to show a high-tech biometric passport or some other form of secure ID, they say, a terrorist could use a fake driver’s license to devastating and tragic results.

Such scenarios are why, rather than seeking to kill the initiative, ICSC supports travel industry efforts to lobby for a solution that “balances the need for better security with the free flow of commerce,” said Jennifer Platt, ICSC’s director of federal government relations.

The hope is that the federal government will come up with an alternative to the passport that is highly secure, inexpensive and easy for travelers to acquire, says Rick Webster, director of government affairs at the Travel Industry Association of America. As passed by Congress, however, the law clearly states that the passport “will be the document of choice for travel within the Western Hemisphere or re-entry.”

And that has some executives entertaining the other nightmare scenario: serious drop-offs in shopping become the painful price of greater security.

http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct0206/cover_story.php

And now we know why Bailey is against it. It has nothing to do with families wanting to see each other across a border, or how difficult it is to get a passport, which by the way it isn't since I just got a new one and it was pretty easy. No it is pure economics. Well friend bailey economics as important as they are still are not the end all. There are other considerations as you well know.

You may want the tourists to keep comming in to subsidize your lifestyle, without them you will have to replace government tax revenues from tourism somehow, but frankly that is not our major concern, nor should it be.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Wait a minute. Tow posts farther down an article you cut and pasted says that 34% of Americans and 41% of Canadians have passports. Which is it? Bailey it is this kind of thing that impacts negatively on credibility.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

What is your basis for saying that the civil liberties and the political rights are worse in those countries?

The level of human rights is without doubt much worse in the U.S. than in the countries you mentioned (maybe except Turkey) All countries that are members of the EU or wanna become members has to match the Copenhagen Criterias, which includes the respect of human rights according to HRW (Human Rights Watch) Romania and Bulgaria are actually rebuilding their prisons so they unlike most American prisons live up to the HRW standards.

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Jesus was a communist!

I really wish you would know what the hell you are talking about. Then again I would loose some of this great comedy if you ever did.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu